Live Wire

We are deeply humbled to announce that UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME was named #21 of the 25 best plays of the last 25 years by the New York Times.

From the article:

Physical-theater artists who wrote this daring show for themselves to perform, Ms. Kidwell and Mr. Sheppard are accustomed to making work that’s rooted in the body. “Underground Railroad Game” is more text-based than they’re used to, yet it’s rooted in the body, too — the black body and the white body, female and male, locked in a poisoned dynamic of scarring damage and enormous pain.

We have been working on this piece since 2013, for all five years of our life as a company. From the cramped RV we drove down to New Orleans that fall, to the esteemed OBIE Award ceremony last spring, we have been bowled over by reception to this work. To find our show on this list, amongst plays like “August: Osage County,” “The Laramie Project,” “The Vagina Monologues,” and “An Octoroon” is more than we could ever have dreamed of.

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME stands as a testament to the continuing power of live theatre. If you have been moved by the show and believe in our mission of exploding complex questions with precision and play, we urge you to secure the future of Lightning Rod Special’s work:

Your tax-deductible donation ensures that we can maintain our commitment to creating intelligent, considered work that provokes the cobwebbed corners of our audiences’ minds. Donations of all sizes have a huge impact. If you are interested in making a donation of $2,500+ or in becoming an honorary producer of our future work, please contact Alice@lightningrodspecial.com.

Thank you.

For more information about the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD GAME tour and art book/script, click HERE.

It’s been many months since our in-process showing of “Unformed Consent” in August and we are back in the studio, hard at work continuing development of the piece. We’ve been working on sharpening the critique, deepening our research, and most of all… writing new songs.

When we create, we do so with active participation and listening from every person in the room. In this way, our pieces are really created by the collective and have a strong ensemble voice. With this same sense of collaboration, our audience is a crucial voice for us to hear. Given that it can be many years before our shows premiere, we like to give you as many looks into our process as possible.

So, you are cordially invited to a one-night-only cabaret of songs from “Unformed Consent” and songs that have never before left the rehearsal room.

It’s that time of year again: days are getting shorter and colder, but it’s warm and bright inside the annual LRS party!

This year the party, The Big Bad Funtime Bash, celebrates our fifth anniversary. Five years of making provocative, incendiary original performance in Philadelphia. This party will celebrate our trickster spirit by indulging all things bad. Let yourself be a little naughty this year and join us on Monday, December 11th from 6-9pm at the Maas Building.

Featuring performances by Salty Brine, Isaac Oliver, Jess Conda, and the cast of “Unformed Consent.” Plus Magic Mike bartenders, deviant spiritual guides, prizes from Groundswell Greetings, KG Strong, Good King Tavern, and more. Live auction prizes include roundtrip train fare to New York City to enjoy dinner at Morimoto before seeing “The Lucky Ones” produced by Ars Nova.

All funds raised at the Big Bad Funtime Bash will support our continued development on “Unformed Consent.” Help us continue to make this timely, socially important work!

We’re excited to announce that LRS will be working on our in-progress piece this summer at Orchard Project. A week-long residency in Saratoga Springs, Orchard Project provides us time and space away from the city to focus in on the new work so that we can hit the ground running when rehearsals begin in August.

New Programs This Summer: Integrated Childcare for Participating Artists, An Expansion of the Orchard Project’s Cabaret and Musical Theatre Program, and the Launch of BUSK!: A Street Performance Event to Launch the Saratoga Summer

SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — The Orchard Project is proud to announce the artists, teams and ensembles participating in its eleventh summer residency program, running from June 1-July 2, 2017. Twenty-six artists and ensembles were selected from the nearly 600 theatre artists who applied to develop big, new ideas. The Orchard Project is a laboratory program where theatre artists and companies come to innovate, develop, and refine new shows. Past productions developed at the Orchard Project have gone on to be performed on Broadway and around the globe for more than 1.5 million people, winning every theater award from TONY® to OBIE to Oliviers, and being turned into acclaimed films.

“The Orchard Project clears the runway for amazing artists to make great work,” Artistic Director Ari Edelson said. “I couldn’t be more excited about the upcoming season, when we will support a more diverse group of artists than ever before and launch our new Family Initiative to support working families.”

In addition to its laboratory program, the Orchard Project is holding a series of public events, including 8:00pm Cabarets on Friday, June 9, Saturday, June 17, and Friday, June 23. On Sunday, June 4th from Noon-6:00pm, it will launch BUSK!, a spontaneous, outrageous, family-friendly event showcasing world-class performers alongside local talent. BUSK! aims to offer something to everyone — from local bands and magicians to spectacular circus artists and stunt performers. BUSK! will culminate in an evening cabaret at Putnam Den, kicking off at 8:00PM. All Orchard Project events are free, with special reserved seating for members. For more information about becoming a member, call 646-760-6767.

The artists selected to participate in the Orchard Project laboratory program will come to Saratoga Springs from around the world to accelerate projects at various stages of development. They include:

Lub Dub Theatre Company (NY), developing their immersive piece filled with music and magic, The Doubtful Guest;

Atlas Circus Company (NY), working on a new piece incorporating acrobatic slapstick, magic, and inventive circus skills;

Beloved street performers The Red Trouser Show (MA), creating a new show;

Mia Chung (NY) and Peter Stopschinski (TX), creating a new musical about the Korean War;

Lightning Rod Special (PA), creating a butoh-bouffon musical about birth and babies;

New Perspectives (United Kingdom), adapting award-winning Romanian film Tales From The Golden Age;

Dell Arte International (CA), collaborating with Til Lalezar (Denmark) on the large scale devised work, Life Boats;

Shakespeare Theatre of St Louis (MO), working with Alarm Will Sound (NY) and Taylor Mac (NY), working on Taylor Mac’s adaption of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.

The Orchard Project is also continuing and expanding its Cabaret and Musical Theatre Program, launched last year in partnership with the Putnam Den. This year, the Orchard Project has made annual favorite Julian Fleisher director of cabaret and musical theatre, and will be hosting new work by a slew of the most exciting artists around:

Mo Rocca (NY)

David Cale (NY)

Rebekah Allen (NY)

Howard Fishman (NY)

Jack Bartholet (NY)

Ryan Scott Oliver (NY)

Molly Rice (PA) and Milia Ayache (Lebanon)

John Arthur Hill (CA)

THE FAMILY INITIATIVE

In 2017, the Orchard Project’s Family Initiative looks to raise the bar for all arts organizations by saying child care should not just be an occasional option but standard operating procedure. While the Orchard Project has always been family friendly, as of this summer it will provide form-fitting childcare to visiting artists. The Orchard Project Family Initiative will not be restricted to one week or one project, and will provide different resources to parents based on age and need.

Says Edelson, “The simple truth is that the field makes it tremendously difficult for theatre makers with young families to have the time and space to create new work, and if anyone is interested in the representation of diverse voices on stage, such a commitment is most important at institutions like the Orchard Project, which overwhelmingly seed the content produced by theatres around the country.”

ABOUT THE ORCHARD PROJECT

Hundreds of theatre companies and creative artists from around the United States and world have applied each year to develop their big ideas at the Orchard Project. In its original home in Hunter, NY, the Orchard Project supported more than 700 artists and 200 shows. In 2015, The Orchard Project expanded and moved to Saratoga Springs, NY, where it added a new series of public programs, Orchard Project Presents, allowing the public and theatre industry to get sneak peeks of ground-breaking new work.

The Orchard Project supports work that go to a wide variety of other theaters – from Broadway to the West End to independent theaters across the world. Recent productions include Amelie (Broadway), The Iphigenia Quartet (Gate Theater), Empathy School (Abrons Arts), All the Way (Broadway, Asolo Rep, Arena Stage, Dallas Theatre Center, OSF, A.R.T, HBO Films and more), The Object Lesson (BAM Next Wave Festival and New York Theatre Workshop), and I Promised Myself to Live Faster (Humana Festival).

Writers, teams, and ensembles join the Orchard Project for overlapping residencies, during which they are provided with free rehearsal space, room and board, and the support of fellow artists.

The Orchard Project’s elite education program, the Core Company, draws talented young artists from across the country. The young artists who are members of the Core Company train and create new work alongside resident artists and companies — and support the professional artists in residence.

Past Orchard Project supported companies include The Royal Court, the Public Theater, Tectonic Theatre Project, The Atlantic Theater Company, Pig Iron, The Rude Mechs, American Repertory Theater, Paines Plough, The TEAM, Mabou Mines, and many others. Work developed at the Orchard Project has gone on to win awards including Obies, Drama Desks, Olivier Awards and the 2014 TONY Award for Best Play for All The Way, which was written at the Orchard Project in 2010 and 2011. By even the most conservative estimate, these shows have been seen by more than 1,500,000 people in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, London, and as far afield as Tokyo and Stockholm.

Last night I had the distinct honor to watch Jenn and Scott be awarded an Obie for “Best New American Theatre Work” for Underground Railroad Game. After years of hard work, it was incredible to watch them be so honored. Katie, Mason, and I are so proud of them.

We’ll post a video of their acceptance speech on our Facebook page so you can hear for yourself the number of people whose dedication made the show happen (you’ll notice a particular amount of love from the crowd for FringeArts). They make a special shoutout to everyone who has financially funded the production while it was developing and we would like to echo that gratitude: art like Underground Railroad Game doesn’t happen without the financial support of our network and we are humbled by your generosity. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

With gratitude,

Alice

PS. If (somehow!) you didn’t catch the show in either its Philly or NYC runs, you’ll have many more chances on the horizon. It’s going to Hamburg, Germany next week, then Australia, Williams College, University of Michigan, and will spend a month in DC next year at Woolly Mammoth Theater.

Now that the space dust from Sans Everything has settled, we’re back in the studio hard at work on a new show. To support this effort, LRS is participating in FringeArt’s community-wide dance marathon fundraising effort. This Saturday, May 20th, we’ll be at the Blue Cross River Rink dancing our “art” out. Sponsor Scott and Mason as they shake their tail feathers for Lightning Rod Special! Click the DONATE NOW button below…

HOW IT WORKS:
⚡️ For every donation we receive, LRS takes home 75% and FringeArts receives 25% to continue supporting artists like us.

⚡️ Scott and Mason will be dancing starting at 5pm. For every $50 donated, each will dance for 1 hour. Our goal is to keep them dancing for SIX HOURS.

⚡️ Want to get in on the action? Register to join our dance team HERE. Click “individual dancer” and then choose LIGHTNING ROD SPECIAL under “join a team”. Your $25 registration fee is donated to LRS and while you’re welcome to raise/donate more than that, there’s no pressure!

⚡️ Show up at BlueCross RiverRink on Saturday May 20th at 5pm. Wear yellow (like a lightning bolt) or your Lightning Rod Special tee-shirt if you’ve got one (we’ll be selling them there, too).

The view from above. Photo by Aram Aghazarian of Strange Attractor, voice of The Voice

On the (in)humanity of performance

My sleep schedule has not quite recovered from the past week. It’s hard to believe that just seven days ago, the Lightning Rod Special and Strange Attractor crews were going into their tech week: rehearsals to polish what needed polishing, mine out what still needed refining, and add the lights, sound, set, costume, and tricks (fake blood! A fake tooth!) that made Sans Everything the smashing success it was. (Seriously. Smashing success. Read the reviews here.)

In order to mount such a great show, tech rehearsals become a crucial space to make decisions. It’s when a number of elements that have been waiting on each other suddenly begin their conversation, only to discover that that show opens in four days. “If we had had more time” becomes a mantra. Except in our case, we only really had one day of tech, despite going into ten hour rehearsals well before the show’s opening.

The reason I mention this is not to bemoan how hard our jobs are – we know they’re hard, that’s why not everyone can do them. I mention it because on hour 9 of a 12 hour day, the fourth 12 hour day in a row, when your stomach is in a constant state of unease (you’ve been subsisting almost entirely on sugar to get you through these late nights), when your limbs are aching because you’ve rehearsed the Wrestling Scene three times (and each Wrestling Scene contains As You Like It’s wrestling scene three times), when your inbox is filling with emails of calls to action that you simply cannot answer right now, when you haven’t seen the people that you live with since Monday, when your bed is a distant memory, you actually start to wonder why it is you do this.

Notes on opening night

One thing that we see in Sans Everything is that the discovery of performance, and therefore, the relationship between humanity and artmaking, is as natural and as obvious as human thought. And so it must then mean that artmaking is human, or humane. Or just a necessary part of the expression of humanity.

I don’t mean to be glib when I say is it though? And I don’t mean to be annoying when I mention how exhausted we all are. Every job has its sleep deprivation, its stress. Every job has its moments of why do I do this. But beyond the triggers of the final week of rehearsal, I think what has me pondering artmaking as humane the most is not quite preparation, but performance. Because I know that the other thing we see in Sans Everything is the discovery that performance is not always kind, or contemplative, or restorative.

Saw is forced to be a part of the set. Breathing is made into an actor against his will. Simon – poor, tortured Simon – struggles and fails to fight the artifice of performance. And even the actors within the play are being knocked around, worn out, physically abused by their need to continue performing, performing, performing. And just as soon as they start, they stop. Foon pulls them offstage, shows them that it’s all just a play. Likewise, just as soon as we started performing at FringeArts on February 9th, we stopped performing at FringeArts on February 11th. Our set, the strange, clean, humming world of discovery that we had created with such reverence and love is torn down. It’s being dumped away to make room for the load-in and creation of the set for A Ride on the Irish Cream (everyone go see that one too). Something we spent so hard working on is not only finished, but it is, in many ways, gone.

Is it humane? Are we really doing the human thing, in pretending, and then discarding? Are we at our most human when we are being watched? Or when we are doing the watching? To whom is performance most humane – the performers, or the audience?

I don’t know. And, at the end of the day, I don’t care. Because it is true that I always get a little physically ill after a show closes, my body finally releasing several week’s worth of stress, adrenaline, and exhaustion. It is true that I am also always a little lost after the closing of a show, because something that I have spent so much time thinking about is over and no one is asking me to think about it anymore. But it is also true that despite not needing to, I sat and watched almost every performance of Sans Everything, because I was desperate to feel the audience feeling the show. I longed to laugh when Henry showed Breathing peekaboo for the first time. When I’m performing, I black out and forget almost everything except for moments when I am fully present in the humanity of my relationships – to my fellow performers, to my audience, to my art. I think in many ways performance can be an abusive ritual that is fueled by obsession, self-deprecation, sleeplessness, and exaltant fervor. But I also think that it is an expression of a longing or yearning that, though will never be filled by any one performance or art, is deeply human.

Thanks for coming into space with us. I think this is a good place to stop.